SPOILER DISCUSSION

1.The second part of the film feels distinct because it plays with the chronology induced by the time-leap between the sections. While the first section proceeds in a more traditionally paced manner, the second half cuts between huge swaths of time at a whim to emphasize and comment on László’s obssession

The scene of him getting sacked from the project is immediately followed by a scene of him getting re-hired at his new-job with no immediate explanation of how long has passed. The point is less what László has been doing in the “meanwhile” and more a confirmation that his life is only relevant when in relation to his “artistic” work.

This effect is emphasized after his rape by Van Buren. He returns to America and the scenes of construction are sped-up to the point of time-lapse photography, a surreal break with the more traditional scenes of development that populated the film up to the point. The desire to finish the piece becomes the sole driver of his story, the organizing principle by which the building scenes are ordered upon.

2.Erzsébet’s confrontation with the Van Buren’s at the film’s end serves as a monstrous counterpoint to László’s discussion with the brothel owner at the film’s start.

In the initial encounter, a man uses his capital to purchase gratification from women and is subsequently coded as queer by a woman proximate to the situation. In the second encounter, a man uses his capital, this time in the form of patronage, to forcefully take gratification from a man and is subsequently coded as queer by a woman, Erzsébet.

While László rejects his designation, Harrison is unable to muster any word in response to the queerness of the offense and is subsequently “erased” from the text. It is implied he may have passed, but there is no confirmation of his status. All we know is he disappears into the architecture.

It is telling that he disappears not due to the act, but due to its recognition within the social sphere. It becomes grafted to his subject, a condemnation bearing more weight than that of a rapist

3.The Epilogue turns the film formally on its head and taking it at face value undermines and does a disservice to the experimentation at play.

The sonic stylings of the overture which had previously been used to signify the epic and monumental have been replaced by an electronic variant that could be from a video-game, a transformation broaching parody.

László is rendered mute and in a wheelchair, having taken on the ailments of both Erzsébet and Zsófia; if he has been coded as the film’s feminine in this moment, the question becomes understanding why.

Meanwhile, the older Zsófia (Ariane Labed) speaks for László while her daughter, who is also played by Raffey Cassidy, introduces a surreal opacity which momentarily confuses the scene and its happenings. The realization of what’s happening forces ones awareness of the artifice of the moment.

This makes Zsófia’s speech increasingly suspect as it continues oscillating visual registers, between the film’s aesthetic and the boxy frames of the propaganda videos from earlier. Her assertion that it is the destination and not the journey that matters only cements the intentional ambiguity of the entire sequence. After all, her words come after our experience of László’s journey for over 3 hours.

Yet, her words also bracket László’s tale; she is the one who addresses the camera at both the beginning and end of the film, the silent women who finds her voice telling the story of a man thereby calling to question whose film, whose story The Brutalist truly is.